Grief Requires Witness

2013-2014

“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.” - Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Subdued Panic

Denial

Anguish

Not Getting There

Where Do We Go From Here?

Formula For Triumph

Powerlessness

Couldn't Find Quiet, I Don't Understand

Putting The Damage On

The Study of Aloneness

2010-2012

In The Study of Aloneness, photographs are arranged into small series. Each series is an unconventional visual journal depicting what aloneness looks like and shows what it’s like to have a relationship with the self. Each series touches upon the elation and freedoms as well as the struggles in having to face oneself when experiencing aloneness.

When aloneness and renunciation is accomplished, identity no longer matters. Within each series, the stripping down of identity is depicted so that the imagery gives way to being universal. In each study, the subject gets closer to becoming no one, which is sequentially the most relieving condition of being alone. The deeper into aloneness one goes ultimately paves the way of losing and unraveling the false identity created over a lifetime. The minimal and simplistic compositions support the idea of forced self-awareness and challenges the behavioral patterns of avoiding oneself through external distractions.

The photographs show an eerie yet beautiful sensibility, as if experiencing aloneness for the first time. Discomfort is visually acknowledged. States of consciousness shift within the photographs and are constantly ever changing, just as the human conscious works, acting as a relief from any permanency. Hints of elation quickly yo-yo into awkward moments with the self and then interchange into peace. Through the use of color photography and black and white photography, the observer is able to delve into each state of consciousness and view each series as a narrative. The message and feeling is meant to be familiar to the viewer yet offers an uncommon and intimate insight of the artist’s transformative experience of aloneness.

Metaphysical Libertarianism

This Too Shall Pass

Vipassana

You Fly Straight Into My Heart

I Don't Mind If You Forget Me

These Things Take Time

Solitude Is Bliss

Maybe I'd Like To Break

Composure

Power For Power

Power and Sacrifice

The Great Annihilator

Rejoice, We Made The Right Choice

For The Damaged

You Take Me And I'll Be You

And They Will Lean That Way Forever

Useless Declarations Cease To Exist

SABBAT

2011

Portraits of teenagers representing the Wheel of the Year.

Haydyn (Northern Hemisphere)

Marin (Imbolc)

Nikki (Ostara)

Avalon (Beltane)

Emma (Midsummer)

Evan (Midwinter)

Nadia (Samhain)

Joel (Lughnasadh)

Ceara (Mabon)

Patrick (Southern Hemisphere)

South

East

West

Spain

France

In Memory of Ronald J Koett (1946-2009)

2009

A collection of photographs made during the week my father unexpectedly died. I don't remember making these photographs at all because unbearable grief tends to have that effect.

Through these photographs I now see that I was trying to make sense of a life that was left suddenly, without warning, and without any goodbye's. I desperately wanted a goodbye and I never got one. I needed to remember the nuances because isn't that the way he would've wanted to be remembered? How he lived, where he went, and what he loved the most is what emerges in these photographs.